GearHead2 v0.451

[Joseph Hewitt]

I've just uploaded GH2v0.451 to SourceForge. The lockup at campaign creation has been fixed. Here's the list of changes:

- Improved the mission selection menu for ArenaHQ (gh2arena.pp)
In ASCII mode, there should now be enough room for all the mission descriptions. Also, each description now includes the money that will be earned from the mission.

- Shopkeepers with a faction won't sell non-faction goods (services.pp)

- Throwing weapons with Extend tag get extra range (locale.pp)
I thought this would be a good answer to the Extend/Thrown issue.

- Fixed endless loop in quest generator (navigator.pp)
- Adjusted the emergency recovery rate (arenaplay.pp)

That's it. Try it out, and let me know what you think.

For RPG mode, my next goal is to get the L5 region mostly filled out. Once the world is complete, I can start expanding the core story. Until the world is sufficiently full it doesn't make much sense to extend the core story past a single episode. How complete is complete? I need to add a few more FCS spinners, Brandor Spinner for the L5 Alliance, the Rishiri Spinners, the Privateer station, the Bohemian colonies, the new Crihna asteroid, and that should be it.

The next big programming change will probably be to update the plot system with city moods.

[Anticheese]

Nifty! Sorry I have not been active (exam season), but hey! Neat!

Just looking at the changelist though...

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

- Shopkeepers with a faction won't sell non-faction goods (services.pp)

What about generic items such as rations, power cells, software, etc?

[Joseph Hewitt]

Ah, yes, I should have explained this one better. They'll sell general items, just not items belonging to other factions.

[Burzmali]

I still noticed significant lag when entering Theles Spinner for the first time.  Expected load time or bug?

[Epsilon]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

For RPG mode, my next goal is to get the L5 region mostly filled out. Once the world is complete, I can start expanding the core story. Until the world is sufficiently full it doesn't make much sense to extend the core story past a single episode. How complete is complete? I need to add a few more FCS spinners, Brandor Spinner for the L5 Alliance, the Rishiri Spinners, the Privateer station, the Bohemian colonies, the new Crihna asteroid, and that should be it.

Just to make sure, you're still moving outside of the L5 regions, right? After you flesh out L5? We need Marrrrrs.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Burzmali

I still noticed significant lag when entering Theles Spinner for the first time. Expected load time or bug?

Strange. Is it just Theles Spinner, or when entering other spinners for the first time as well?

Quoting: Epsilon

Just to make sure, you're still moving outside of the L5 regions, right?

Yes, that's right.

[Erathoniel]

I seem to remember Theles Spinner being really slow, but I just shrugged it off as my computer getting older. It's only a year old, dangit, and it's allergic to most of the games I imagined playing on it! Generally EA games, though.

[Epsilon]

Hrm. Are starting enemy mecha/pilots significantly better  than they were in GH1? The last two games I played, I got shot down within two turns, with a mecha piloting of 3 and reflexes of 12. Just poor luck, I guess. WHat' the key to turn on rolls again?

Also, I got a plot deadend that also closed off a building as having "nothing interesting inside". Shouldn't named buildings always be enterable?

[Erathoniel]

Ouch. The named buildings are often only for plot introductions, I think they're meant to close.

[Epsilon]

Quoting: Erathoniel

Ouch. The named buildings are often only for plot introductions, I think they're meant to close.

I was told to return there to find who got shout out of space.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Epsilon

Hrm. Are starting enemy mecha/pilots significantly better than they were in GH1?

They might be. I changed the enemy mecha generator in v0.450, and while it's been tested quite a bit in arena mode I haven't done as much playtesting in RPG mode.

Quoting: Epsilon

Also, I got a plot deadend that also closed off a building as having "nothing interesting inside". Shouldn't named buildings always be enterable?

No, not always. Certain buildings are keyed to plot events; they can only be entered when there's something happening in them. The reason you couldn't enter the building in this case is that  the story hit a dead end; there was no plot loaded to cover the next event.

[Erathoniel]

Dead ends cause major problems. Could there be filler plot for until all the episodes are released?

[Frumple]

Took me a while, but I finally got around to updating.  Long and short of it: I love the new arena stuff, especially on my poor comp (No plot loading = constant mecha mashing goodness!).

I do, however, have a question or two -- with your arena group, how exactly does the non-combat skills work? I made a grease-monkey character (20 know/craft, 6 appropos skill, etc) to do minor mecha modding, but even really, really basic mods seemed to have rediculous fail rates (Taking out an installed 1 slot piece was failing like 80+% of the time, for example) -- does it default to whoever has the highest M.Engineering skill, is there some other choosing factor, or am I just missing something?  
Beyond that, does shopping/convo/flirting help out any? I noticed after making the character (Who also had high Charm and the appropriate skills) that I was getting some pretty decent discounts off the stated mecha-price -- if it does have an effect, I might put aside some funds to buy the chara' that flying armor plate of a command mech I spat out...

[Joseph Hewitt]

Not all non-combat skills get used in Arena mode. There's an overview of which ones do in this thread:
http://gearhead.chaosforge.org/forum/index.php?act ion=vthread&forum=3&topic=688

I'll give a brief overview here, though. Repair skills lower the cost of repairs after battle. Two repair skills- Mecha Repair and Medicine- are very important, as they allow mecha/characters that were destroyed in battle to be recovered afterwards. For instance, if one of your characters dies in battle but you have someone with the Medicine skill, there's a chance that he will be recovered and not permanently lost. In theory Biotech is also an important skill for this reason, but since there are not yet any biotech mecha in the game it's not too useful yet.

Conversation increases the number of missions offered in the "Enter Combat" menu. Shopping reduces the cost of new mecha. Flirtation has no effect. The Business Sense talent currently has no effect, but I ought to change that.

Mecha Engineering, and all other skills that apply in arena mode, uses the team skill value. This is calculated by taking the best skill value out of all the team members and applying a bonus for other team members who also have the skill. It does seem like the fail rates in GH2 are ridiculous- I'll look into that.

[Albijoe]

ooh - make business sense affect the battle rewards!